Service providers and device manufacturers (e.g., wireless, cellular, etc.) are continually challenged to deliver value and convenience to consumers by, for example, providing compelling network services. With the expanding use of mobile devices, consumers' demand to have valuable services delivered to these devices has increased. By way of example, many mobile devices are now equipped with global positioning system (GPS) receivers and mapping and/or navigation applications for presenting location-based information. One area of interest has been the development of location-based services to provide authorization methods based on mobile unit locations to access online user groups. Such location based authorizations can be extremely effective, especially in a de-centralized environment wherein the members of online user groups change their locations on a frequent basis, which undermines the ability of the online user groups to restrict access only to the active members because it gives prevalence to the difficulty of tracking their membership status. Unfortunately, device application and/or service providers have no convenient means of providing location information to access online user groups. Accordingly, service providers and device manufacturers face significant technical challenges in providing a location-based service that contemporaneously considers a user's location information to optimize results for authentication during a sign-up process for accessing online user groups.